[Chapter X. Winged Life.]—First day’s walk—Tracks in the sand—Scarcity of birds—Dangers of bird-life—No cover for protection—Food problem—Heat and drouth again—A bird’s temperature—Innocent-looking birds—The road-runner—Wrens and fly-catchers—Development of special characteristics—Birds of the air—The vulture—His hunting and sailing—The southern buzzard—The crow—The great condor—Eagles and hawks—Bats and owls—The burrowing owl—Ground-birds—The road-runner’s swiftness—The vicious beak—The desert-quail—Wings of the quail—Travelling for water—Habits of the quail—His strong legs—Bush-birds—Woodpeckers and cactus—Finches and mocking-birds—Humming-birds—Doves and grosbeaks—The lark and flickers—Jays and magpies—Water fowl—Beetles and worms—Fighting destruction by breed—Blue and green beetles—Butterflies—Design and character—Beauty of birds—Beauty also of reptiles—Nature’s work all purposeful—Precious jewel of the toad [174]
[Chapter XI. Mesas and Foot-Hills.]—Flat steps of the desert—Across Southern Arizona—Rising from the desert—The great mesas—“Grease wood plains”—Upland vegetation—Grass plains—Spring and summer on the plains—Home of the antelope—Beds of soda and gypsum—Riding into the unexpected—The Grand Canyon country—Hills covered with juniper—The Painted Desert—Riding on the mesas—The reversion to savagery—The thin air again—The light and its deceptions—Distorted proportions—Changed colors—The little hills—Painting the desert—Worn-down mountains—Mountain wash—Flattening down the plain—Mountain making—The foot-hills—Forms of the foot-hills—Mountain plants—Bare mountains—The southern exposures—Gray lichens—Still in the desert—Arida Zona—Cloud-bursts in the mesas—Wash of rains—Gorge cutting—In the canyons—Walls of rock—Color in canyon shadows—Blue sky—Desert landscape—Knowledge of Nature—Nature-lovers—Human limitations [194]
[Chapter XII. Mountain Barriers.]—The western mountains—Saddles and passes—View from mountain top—Looking toward the peaks—Lost streams—Avalanches and bowlder-beds—Ascent by the arroyo—Growth of the stream—Rising banks—Waterfalls—Gorges—Ascent by the ridges—The chaparral—Home of the grizzly—Ridge trails—Among the live-oaks—Birds and deer—Yawning canyons—Canyon streams—Snow—Water wear—The pines—Barrancas and escarpments—Under the pines—Bushes, ferns, and mosses—Mountain quail—Indigo jays—Warblers—The mountain air—The dwarf pines—The summit—The look upward at the sky—The dark-blue dome—White light—Distant views—The Pacific—Southern California—The garden in the desert—Reclaiming the valleys—Nature’s fight against fertility—The desert from the mountain top—The great extent of desert—The fateful wilderness—All shall perish—The death of worlds—The desert the beginning of the end—Development through adversity—Sublimity of the waste—Desolation and silence—Good-night to the desert [213]
THE DESERT
CHAPTER I
THE APPROACH
Desert mountains.
Unknown ranges.
It is the last considerable group of mountains between the divide and the low basin of the Colorado desert. For days I have been watching them change color at sunset—watching the canyons shift into great slashes of blue and purple shadow, and the ridges flame with edgings of glittering fire. They are lonesome looking mountains lying off there by themselves on the plain, so still, so barren, so blazing hot under the sun. Forsaken of their kind, one might not inappropriately call them the “Lost Mountains”—the surviving remnant no doubt of some noble range that long centuries ago was beaten by wind and rain into desert sand. And yet before one gets to them they may prove quite formidable heights, with precipitous sides and unsurmountable tops. Who knows? Not those with whom I am stopping, for they have not been there. They do not even know the name of them. The Papagoes leave them alone because there is no game in them. Evidently they are considered unimportant hills, nobody’s hills, no man’s range; but nevertheless I am off for them in the morning at daylight.
Early morning on the desert.
Air illusions.